While visiting the city, I was trying to discover why New York is called the “Big Apple,” so I had my research team do some Google searches. It seems that the nickname was popularized by sportswriter John J. Fitz Gerald through a series of horse-racing related articles for the New York Morning Telegraph back in the 1920s. “The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There’s only one Big Apple. That’s New York.” I guess it could have just as easily been called the “Big Carrot.”

Was there really a brothel in the city run by  a woman named Eve, as some rumors imply? A stronger possibility is a reference in the 1909 book by Edward S. Martin, The Wayfarer in New York, that reads, “Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city…It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.” Its roots may also lie in African-American culture, as found in the Chicago Defender publication: “I trust your trip to ‘the big apple’ (New York) was a huge success and only wish that I had been able to make it with you.”

By the late 1920s other writers were referring to the city as “The Big Apple” outside of horse racing, including Walter Winchell in the 40s and 50s and there was apparently even a popular song and a dance, as well as apple-inspired night clubs. By the early 1970s, the New York Convention and Visitor’s Bureau had adopted the nickname and began to aggressively promote it. Similarly, the baseball Mets featured a “Home Run Apple” and apples began to appear on merchandise, store fronts, and festivals related to New York City. “Big Apple Corner” was established on the southwest corner of 54th and Broadway. Events like the Big Apple Anime Fest and Big Apple Theater Festival began to pop up, and eventually the city and the red apple became one. Even Presidential candidate Donald Trump introduced “The Big Apple Ball” to his home town.

“New York,” “NY,” “NYC,” “The City” or the “Big City” is also known as “The Capital of the World,” “The Center of the Universe,” “The City so nice they named it twice,” the city that never sleeps,” “The Empire City, ” “The Five Boroughs,” “Fun City,” “Gotham,” “The Melting Pot,” “Metropolis,” “The Modern Gomorrah,” “Baghdad on the Subway,” “Hong Kong on the Hudson,” and originally “New Amsterdam.” However, “The Big Apple” seems to be the most endearing reference. 

Historically, apples appear in many religious traditions often as mystical or forbidden fruit, from the Book of Genesis to The Song of Solomon. “Applemania” is incorporated into legends, rituals, phrases, and fairy tales like poison apples, Apple Day, William Tell, Issac Newton, apple bobbing, a slice of apple pie,”an apple for the teacher,” “little green apples,” Johnny Appleseed, “apples to oranges,””an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” “apple of my eye,” and “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” to name a few. Apple Records and Apple Computers are more modern-day commercial uses of the iconic fruit from the Garden of Eden.

No matter how you slice it, “The Big Apple” is New York City and nowhere else. To me, it’s a city that requires more energy than anywhere else to get something done. Lines are longer, there’s more noise & garbage, horrendous horn honking, traffic is ridiculous,  buildings are taller, blocks are longer, and people can be rude. It can sometimes be the “Rotten Apple.” Hopefully, it won’t be today!

 

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